Hitherto, recording apparatus for radiation image such as X-ray image is widely applied for diagnosis on medical scenes. Particularly, radiation imaging apparatus using intensifying paper-x-ray film system is used on the medical scenes in the world as a result of the improvement in the sensitivity and image quality during the long history thereof.
Recently, a digital radiation image detecting means typically a flat panel radiation detector (FPD) has come to be used in this field, by which the radiation image can be obtained as digital information which can be freely processed and immediately transmitted electrically.
The radiation image detecting means has a scintillator panel which converts radiation to fluorescence. The scintillator panel receives radiation permeated through an object and instantaneously emits light corresponding to intensity of the radiation from a phosphor layer (fluorescent layer): the scintillator panel containing a phosphor layer formed on a substrate.
FIG. 6 is a schematic cross section of the panel portion of a vacuum evaporation apparatus for manufacturing the scintillator panel disclosed in patent Document 1.
The scintillator panel 109 is constituted by a phosphor layer 107, a substrate 101 supporting the phosphor layer 107, a insulation layer 102, a reflection layer 103 for reflecting the light converted by the phosphor layer to the sensor panel side. 104 is a substrate holder, 105 is a masking area for spattering aluminum of the reflection layer 103.
In the scintillator panel and the production method of scintillator panel described in patent Publication 1, a non-image forming area where the phosphor layer 107 is not formed is formed at the circumference portion of the substrate 101 because the substrate 101 is held by the substrate holder at the circumference portion thereof on the occasion of formation of the phosphor layer 107 on the substrate 101 by the vacuum evaporation apparatus as shown in the cross section of the scintillator panel of FIG. 6.
In the field of radiation imaging such as mammography, it is desired to have an expanded effective image area of the radiation detecting means.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Application Publication Open to Public Inspection (hereafter referred to as JP-A) No. 2003-75542